Kuwait: Imprisonment of defendants in the largest money laundering case

Yesterday, the Criminal Court in Kuwait ruled that a member of the ruling family (Sheikh), his partner, and two expatriates be imprisoned for 10 years, and a lawyer for 7 years, obliging them to return one billion dollars and fining them jointly an amount of 145 million Kuwaiti dinars (equivalent to half a billion dollars), in the largest money laundering case. Known as the “Malaysian Fund”.

The Public Prosecution had reopened the file of the “Malaysian Fund” case, after a two-year hiatus due to the failure to receive information from international bodies, and with the availability of that information, the case was reopened.

The original case in Malaysia, which is added to the series of global corruption cases, dates back to 2016, when US prosecutors filed a lawsuit with the aim of recovering assets worth more than one billion dollars, which they say are related to an international conspiracy to launder money embezzled from the Malaysian sovereign fund (1MDB). Which is supervised by the former Prime Minister, Najib Abdel-Razzaq, and was used to finance a Hollywood movie, and to buy real estate and famous works of art.

The case unfolded in Kuwait in May 2020, after US officials in the Ministry of Defense provided information to the (late) former Kuwaiti Defense Minister Sheikh Nasser Sabah Al-Ahmad, indicating the involvement of a number of former officials in facilitating the passage of suspicious financial operations in favor of Chinese and Malaysian companies through suspicious projects. .

In Kuwait, investigations proved that nearly a billion dollars entered the account of an effective Kuwaiti person, and then it was re-transferred abroad. Investigations link a Malaysian expert accused in this case with the son of a former Kuwaiti prime minister, who cooperated to open channels to transfer funds using intermediary companies.

On the tenth of July (July), the Kuwaiti Public Prosecution ordered the arrest of Sheikh Sabah Jaber Al-Mubarak, son of the former prime minister, on the background of the “Malaysian Fund” case, and an accomplice in this case was also arrested.

On August 10, 2020, an order was issued to refer the defendants in this case to trial. On September 30, 2022, the Criminal Court postponed the trial of the defendants in the Malaysian Fund case to October 25, 2022.